Full Citation
Title: Leisure Luxuries and the Labor Supply of Young Men
Citation Type: Working Paper
Publication Year: 2017
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Abstract: Younger men, ages 21 to 30, exhibited a larger decline in work hours over the last fifteen years than older men or women. Since 2004, time-use data show that younger men distinctly shifted their leisure to video gaming and other recreational computer activities. We propose a framework to answer whether improved leisure technology played a role in reducing younger men's labor supply. The starting point is a leisure demand system that parallels that often estimated for consumption expenditures. We show that total leisure demand is especially sensitive to innovations in leisure luxuries, that is, activities that display a disproportionate response to changes in total leisure time. We estimate that gaming/recreational computer use is distinctly a leisure luxury for younger men. Moreover, we calculate that innovations to gaming/recreational computing since 2004 explain on the order of half the increase in leisure for younger men, and predict a decline in market hours of 1.5 to 3.0 percent, which is 38 and 79 percent of the differential decline relative to older men.
Url: https://www.nber.org/papers/w23552
User Submitted?: No
Authors: Aguiar, Mark; Bils, Mark; Kofi Charles, Kerwin; Hurst, Erik
Series Title: NBER Working Paper Series
Publication Number: 23552
Institution: NBER
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Data Collections: IPUMS USA, IPUMS CPS
Topics: Labor Force and Occupational Structure, Other
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